Dmitry Kovtun

Dmitry Kovtun (1965-) was a Russian businessman and ex-KGB agent who poisoned dissident Alexander Litvinenko on the orders of Vladimir Putin in 2006.

Biography
Dmitry Kovtun was born in the Russian SFSR of the Soviet Union in 1965, and he was a childhood friend and a classmate of Andrey Lugovoy. They attended the elite Soviet military command academy in Moscow in the 1980s, and they were charged with the protection of top Kremlin officials. After the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, the two men became involved in the security business, and Kovtun also became a business consultant. On 1 December 2006, he was sent to meet with FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko in Hamburg, Germany, where Kovtun placed polonium in his car and apartment. Litvinenko fell ill and died on the 23rd, while Kovtun also fell ill, as traces of polonium were also found in his own apartment. In February 2012, the British government requested Kovtun's extradition to England to stand trial for Litvinenko's murder, and, on 9 January 2017, Kovtun was blacklisted by the US government.